Smith: hand over the keys

Saturday, February 15, 2014
    Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730
Meditation:
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.
    —Psalm 68:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward experience, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you and therefore He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it.
    ... Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, London: F. E. Longley, 1876, p. 32 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 68:19; Joel 2:21; Matt. 6:25,27,31-34; 16:24; Luke 9:23; 12:25-26,29; Rom. 12:10; 2 Tim. 2:21; 1 Pet. 2:24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I place all my cares with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chadwick: Fire and love

Friday, February 14, 2014
    Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885
    Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269
Meditation:
    ...for our “God is a consuming fire.”
    —Hebrews 12:29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fire is the chosen symbol of Heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love; God is fire. The two are one. The Holy Spirit baptises in fire. Spirit-filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They believe with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with a fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the Fire of God.
    ... Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), The Way to Pentecost, Hodder and Stoughton, 1932, p. 43 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:29; Ex. 3:2; 13:21-22; 24:17; Ps. 97:3; Isa. 6:4-7; 66:16; Dan. 7:9-10; Joel 2:28-29; Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 2:3-4; 11:15-16; Rom. 5:5; 1 Cor. 3:12-15; 1 Thess. 5:19; 2 Thess. 1:6-7; Heb. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7; 1 John 4:8,18; Jude 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, fill me with Your burning love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: hard words

Thursday, February 13, 2014
Meditation:
    The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”
    —Mark 10:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our Lord was not in the habit of explaining away his hard words. He let them stand in all the glory of the burning fire wherewith they would purge us. Where their simplicity finds corresponding simplicity, they are understood.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Hardness of the Way”, in Unspoken Sermons, Second Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1886, p. 31 (see the book)
    See also Mark 10:24-25; Matt. 5:20,28,32,44; 6:5,16; 10:34-38; Luke 4:18-21,24-27; John 8:44
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people are humbled by Your judgments. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Watson: God's wisdom

Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Meditation:
    Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
    “What you are about to do, do quickly,” Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him.
    —John 13:26-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The wisdom of God is seen in this, that the sins of men shall carry on God’s work; yet that he should have no hand in their sin. The Lord permits sin, but doth not approve it. He hath a hand in the action in which sin is, but not in the sin of the action.
    ... Thomas Watson (c.1620-1686), A Body of Practical Divinity [before 1741], T. Wardle, 1833, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also John 13:26-28; Gen. 50:20; Pr. 21:30; Isa. 7:17-20; 10:5-6,12; 53:10; Matt. 26:53-54; Mark 14:21; Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:27-28; 13:27-29; Rom. 8:28; Jas. 1:13-15; 1 Pet. 2:6-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You use all things to Your glory. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Inge: the shut mind

Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Meditation:
The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned.
    —Isaiah 9:2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    As Christ is our life, so He is also our light. And surely the light means, among other things, the open mind towards Divine things. We need not be afraid of losing our faith by facing all problems honestly, while our lives are on the right lines. But while our minds are shut we cannot help others in their difficulties. We are more likely to turn them away from Christianity.
    ... William R. Inge (1860-1954), Personal Religion and the Life of Devotion, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1924, p. 75 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 9:2; Ps. 107:10-14; Matt. 4:16; Mark 3:4-5; 16:14; John 8:12; 1 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my mind to Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Machen: existence

Monday, February 10, 2014
    Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
    —Matthew 6:28-30 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The relation of Jesus to His heavenly Father was not a relation to a vague and impersonal goodness, it was not a relation which merely clothed itself in symbolic, personal form. On the contrary, it was a relation to a real Person, whose existence was just as definite and just as much a subject of theoretic knowledge as the existence of the lilies of the field that God had clothed. The very basis of the religion of Jesus was a triumphant belief in the real existence of a personal God.
    ... J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), Christianity and Liberalism, The Macmillan Company, 1923, p. 57 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:28-30; Deut. 32:6; Ps. 89:26; Isa. 63:16; 64:8; Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:27-28; Rom. 8:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I rejoice that You are there. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: love and grace to the max

Sunday, February 9, 2014
Meditation:
    For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
    —Romans 5:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is a safe rule of interpreting Scripture, that in places mentioning the love and grace of God to us, the words are to be taken in their utmost significancy.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), from Vindiclae Evangelicae, Works of John Owen, v. XII, R. Carter, 1853, p. 144 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 5:17; Joel 2:28; John 7:37-39; 10:10; Rom. 5:20-21; 2 Cor. 4:15; 1 Tim. 1:14; Tit. 3:4-7; 1 Pet. 1:3-5; 1 John 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love and grace are inexhaustible. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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